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Dancing to his own tune, Jane Westaway

Posted on March 1, 2004 by NZ Books

Ghost dance Douglas Wright Penguin, $39.95, ISBN 0143019031 It’s tempting, when looking to praise a good book from someone who has made their mark in another sphere, to damn them with the feint praise of “natural writer”. As if their…

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Posted in Art, Autobiography, Non-fiction, Review

Editorial – Issue 64

Posted on December 1, 2003 by NZ Books

Catering for the “common reader” The October 1991 issue of New Zealand Books reviewed 6 titles. Twelve years and 57 issues later, the figure was almost exactly the same: NZB October 2003 covered 38 new books. So what’s changed? Certainly…

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Editorial – Issue 63

Posted on September 1, 2003 by NZ Books

A funny sort of pride This is an unusual issue of New Zealand Books, dominated by the loss of two of our pre-eminent writers. When Janet Frame died in January, we decided to commemorate her achievement in this June issue…

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Editorial – Issue 62

Posted on June 1, 2003 by NZ Books

First person singular It’s often said that everyone has a novel inside them. That they have, of course, is a story – their own story – and nowadays the popular way of telling it is not as fiction, thinly disguised…

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Getting by with a little help, Nelson Wattie

Posted on March 1, 2003 by NZ Books

It Looks Better on You: New Zealand Women Writers on their Friendships ed Jane Westaway and Tessa Copland Longacre, $34.95, ISBN 1877135828 We’re unlikely to find a better definition of “friend” than the one in Lennon and McCartney’s famous lines:…

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Posted in Memoir, Non-fiction, Review

Editorial – Issue 60

Posted on December 1, 2002 by NZ Books

Mind your language!   The plurality of communication styles upstream of current stakeholders is relatively porous; but some destabilised pluralities evidence significantly more porosity than others. We’re sorry – we’ll read that again. As Orwell’s power-crazed pigs might have put…

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Editorial – Issue 59

Posted on September 1, 2002 by NZ Books

And the winner is   Literary prizes are, of course, a good thing, and only the most curmudgeonly of spoilsports would want to abolish them. In a profession with few career markers, prizes like the Montana New Zealand Book Awards…

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Editorial – Issue 58

Posted on June 1, 2002 by NZ Books

Kids stuff Readers – and sometimes even writers – seem to think that writing for children and young adults is the literary equivalent of dunking soldiers in your boiled egg. Fun, possibly, but not what a proper grown-up writer should…

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People like us, Jane Westaway

Posted on March 1, 2001 by NZ Books

Holy Days Joy Cowley Penguin, $34.95, ISBN 0141004169 Breakwater Kate Duignan Victoria University Press, $24.95, ISBN 0864734174 Floating the Fish on Bamboo Adrienne Jansen HarperCollins, $24.95, ISBN 1869503988 Domestic realism is the meat and potatoes of contemporary fiction. So it…

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Posted in Fiction, Literature

Quiet successes, Elizabeth Caffin

Posted on August 7, 2000 by NZ Books

Good at Geography Jane Westaway Penguin, $24.95, ISBN 0 14 029142 3 The Company of a Daughter Paddy Richardson Steele Roberts, $24.95, ISBN 0 95 837128 8 Across the Dreaming Night Judith White Vintage, $24.95, ISBN 1 86941 412 8…

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Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
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